Systemic formalisation of Cyber-Physical-Social System (CPSS): A systematic literature review

TL;DR

This paper systematically reviews the concept of Cyber-Physical-Social Systems (CPSS), proposing a domain-independent definition and a meta-model grounded in systems theory to address conceptual gaps and guide future research.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive literature review of CPSS, introduces a generic definition, and develops a systemic meta-model based on the Theory of Systems.

Findings

Identified key principles and definitions of CPSS from literature

Proposed a domain-independent, systemic meta-model for CPSS

Discussed future research directions based on systemic perspectives

Abstract

The notion of Cyber-Physical-Social System (CPSS) is an emerging concept developed as a result of the need to understand the impact of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) on humans and vice versa. This paradigm shift from CPS to CPSS was mainly attributed to the increasing use of sensor-enabled smart devices and the tight link with the users. The concept of CPSS has been around for over a decade and it has gained increasing attention over the past few years. The evolution to incorporate human aspects in the CPS research has unlocked a number of research challenges. Particularly human dynamics brings additional complexity that is yet to be explored. The exploration to conceptualise the notion of CPSS has been partially addressed in few scientific literatures. Although its conceptualisation has always been use-case dependent. Thus, there is a lack of generic view as most works focus on specific domains. Furthermore, the systemic core and design principles linking it with the theory of systems are loose. This work aims at addressing these issues by first exploring and analysing scientific literature to understand the complete spectrum of CPSS through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). Thereby identifying the state-of-the-art perspectives on CPSS regarding definitions, underlining principles and application areas. Subsequently, based on the findings of the SLR, we propose a domain-independent definition and a meta-model for CPSS, grounded in the Theory of Systems. Finally, a discussion on feasible future research directions is presented based on the systemic notion and the proposed meta-models.